


Cruise Control

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: AU, AU where Lester doesn't run away after the elevator scene, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Based on True Events, Blood, Fanart, Fluff, Gun play, Guns, Hand Jobs, Internalized Misogyny, Lester is horny almost all of the time, Lester likes teeth, M/M, Malvo's only constant is his case of tapes, Misogyny, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Plot With Porn, Power Play, Rimming, Rough Sex, Sociopathy/psychopathy, Voyeurism, animal hunting, anti-social behaviour, minor original character death, now his constants are the tapes and lester, or was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:38:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: Lester doesn’t worry about being a burden to Malvo, after all, it was his choice whether or not he helped Malvo dispose of the bodies in the elevator or not. He could easily have ran out of there, and he bets Malvo would have let him.But Lester didn’t run.He stayed.





	1. Lose (Control)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lornemalvoofficial (VerboseSniper)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseSniper/gifts).
  * Inspired by [call it a favour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149881) by [lornemalvoofficial (VerboseSniper)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseSniper/pseuds/lornemalvoofficial). 



> This fic was inspired by lornemalvoofficial's seriously hot fic 'call it a favour'. I initially intended to write a straight follow up from it, but like, idk, this happened. so this first chapter is a prequel of sorts, and chapter 2 will follow on from 'call it a favour'.

Lester doesn’t worry about being a burden to Malvo, after all, it was _his_ choice whether he helped Malvo dispose of the bodies in the elevator or not. He could have ran out of there. Malvo would have let him.

But Lester didn’t run. He stayed.

 

-

It’s going to be months, Malvo had told him, like it’s no time at all. The world’s clock seems to be woven into the fabric of Malvo’s making. The elevator dropped to the stockroom floor. They pulled the bodies out. The end of a broom kept the elevator doors clanging wide open, ajar, wide open again. Without Malvo, Lester would have panicked. Without Malvo, Lester would still be gruelling through life with Pearl. Leaving Linda behind is merely an afterthought.

Malvo can’t know what he has at hand but God seems to gift them with the equipment to remove evidence of their crimes. A pressure hose coiled up on the stockroom wall. Blood dripping from the plastic walls of the elevator like bloody tears. All washed away down the elevator shaft. And the bodies. How strange it is to carry lifelessness. The loose limbs of a type of woman Lester had fucked at brothels since he tore through Pearl’s life. The fat rolls of a wealthy man still dribbling with shock. A woman with skin that wrinkled at her neck like a bunched up sock. Malvo is no strong man but he’s soundless in his effort in stark contradiction to Lester’s grunting and complaining as they folded the bodies into disposal boxes.

Malvo can’t know when the police will arrive, but they get out in time. Sirens whirring toward the casino as they drive out in a hot wired car.

They’ll have to go into hiding, Malvo had told him, until the world forgets who you are, not what you’ve done but there’ll be some other criminal on their minds and if you don’t make a fuss you can slip by scared eyes without a second glance.

But it’ll take time.

“Be patient.”

Malvo’s new contact, Mr Randle – the successor of Mr Rundle, had given them directions to one of numerous sourced hideouts. In the midst of the Wisconsin Nicolet National Park. Rangers won’t bother them, only the wildlife who are undisturbed by human life. Malvo will know when the time is right, although Lester wonders if it’s a fixed point in time or simply when Malvo grows bored of being in one spot for so long. He wonders how long he’ll have before Malvo gets bored of him, too. But if he survives it, and at a point in time when Malvo decides it’s been long enough, they can leave. Rake the snow off their pickup and dig out the build up around the wheels and drive out onto the street as forgotten people, ready to break across the horizon.

 

-

 

Lester kicks his boot up against the stump to keep him steady as he swings the axe through the air.

“You’re going to cut your foot off that way, Lester,” Malvo warns as he pushes Lester’s foot to the ground.

Lester loses his balance and the axe falls with his shaking grip, the blade bounces off the chunk of wood and flicks out of Lester’s hand, lands sideways in the snow.

“Hopeless,” Malvo mutters as he crunches his cigarette between his teeth.

He snatches the axe and in one swift motion, he brings the axe down to half split the chunk of wood. Another aimed swing and he cuts the blade through. He then grabs another chunk and places it on the stump, hands the axe back to Lester.

“Ya make it look easy.”

Malvo stands back with his arms folded. Lester can feel Malvo’s eyes and tobacco breath on his back like the hunter watching his prey, waiting for him to make a mistake. Lester holds his feet apart, copying Malvo’s positioning and he tries to swing using a similar velocity. This time the blade comes down a quarter down the length and about an inch deep.

“Jesus Lester, did Pearl chop wood for you?”

“Well, y’know normally people pay for someone else to cut it up for ya and drop it off at your house-“

“-But in the thick of winter, Lester, when the logging companies have expired their supply, who went out to the forest thickets and chopped wood to keep the family warm. Was it you, or Pearl?”

Lester turns around, a gloved finger jabbing the air and the other gripping the axe, but he sees the smirk on Malvo’s face and opts to rolling his eyes. He turns back to the task at hand and sinks the axe deep in the wood this time, kicks the two sections apart with his boot.

Behind him, Lester hears Malvo put out his cigarette in the icy snow, crunching the butt with his boot. A shiver runs down Lester’s back when he hears the click of the barrel in Malvo’s hunting rifle. Steady footsteps over the icy ground. Rustling branches. Lester looks over his shoulder and watches Malvo’s shadow fold into the forest.

 

-

 

Lester holds his mug of hot water close to his chest, can feel the steam rising up his profile. The flickering fire fills the silence. That, and the sniffles from the sick dog taking up the rug in front of the fireplace. Lester rubs his knees together, glances over at Malvo with the cat that they can’t shake on the man’s skinny legs. He has to laugh at the image. The cat’s rolls are spilling over Lorne’s thighs, barely holding its spot due to its weight.

“Looks comfortable,” Lester comments.

Malvo flicks one eyebrow up, glances sideways at Lester, then back at the fire.

“Mm.”

“Does it uh, have a name? There’s a collar…”

Malvo tears his eyes from the fire, hook his finger beneath the cat’s collar and reads the name out, “Roger.”

“Roger?” Lester scoffs, “Looks more like a Snowball to me.”

“Call it what you want,” Malvo says, patting the cat, “Just don’t get attached. We aren’t going to be here much longer.”

Lester sits up, hot water spilling on his long johns, “H-how much longer?”

Malvo scratches the cat’s cheek and says, “I’ll tell you if you get my briefcase.”

Lester pouts, “No you won’t.”

He puts his mug aside and stands up anyway, grabs the briefcase from Malvo’s unlit bedroom and brings it back into the main room. He comes around to the fire and offers the case to Lorne.

“Are you going to move the cat?” Lester asks.

The heat licks his back.

“Roger will stay,” Malvo says, petting the cat, “Sit down. Don’t you know what’s inside?”

Lester takes his seat again and rests the case on his lap. He opens the latches and lifts the lid. Inside are neatly packed tapes labelled with dates.

“They aren’t going to make a noise by just looking at them Lester. Pick one. There’s a built in player on the right.”

Lester’s eyes dart from Malvo to the tapes again. He holds the side of the case, runs his thumbs over the plastic tape cases. Some labels are so old they’re starting to peel off. Others are fresh, the black marker dark and clear. Of the newer ones, his thumb stops over a familiar date.

Malvo leers over, the cat clawing into his thighs. He snarls more at the cat than at Lester, “Not that one. It’s not done yet.”

Lester hovers over the day he killed Pearl, then goes for the earliest date. 1975, Winter. He pops out the tape and clacks it into the player, makes sure it’s wound back all the way before pressing play.

The recording starts with laughter. Lester watches as Malvo sinks back in his chair, the cat stretches its arms and settles again, the dog sniffles and Lester grips the briefcase as if the machinery is going to give off enough heat to keep his hands warm. They sit together, listening to the tape. Sounds of a young Malvo with a different name, and other – friends maybe. Rustling leaves and the sound of tires turning over pebbles, a gentle wind and the up and down arguments between a man and a woman. The tape bounces from scene to scene, snippets of conversation seemingly irrelevant and others detailing dates and figures. Fifteen minutes in and Lester thinks he hears Malvo snoring. Twenty eight, the tape almost at the end, and Malvo doesn’t stir when analogue screams fill the room.

 

-

 

Malvo doesn’t give him a gun. When Malvo’s not using it, he rests his hunting rifle against the broom cupboard before the back door. Waiting. Lester hasn’t seen Malvo use his supressed gun but he must have it on his person, without a doubt. Not that Malvo would need it for protection necessarily. Malvo’s the kind of man who can talk his way out of a problem, and if that doesn’t work, then he’s going to be the last one standing anyway.

Lester has access to other weapons. He has a knife that he uses to carve the food they hunt. He has a hammer and an axe too. He’s not unprotected but he’s not on equal footing with Malvo’s firearms and he supposes that’s alright so long as this kind of metred distance between them continues. He can’t say he’s a captive because he’s here of his own free will. And he thinks Malvo’s of the same understanding. Lester doesn’t have to be shot. Doesn’t have to be put in line. But he is lesser than Malvo. In many ways. And he thinks that hierarchy of protection is inflicted on him as a sort of punishment until he proves Malvo otherwise. Although, he’s not sure how to make that leap if his increasing survival skills aren’t making a difference.

Perhaps it’s something else, rather than a show of skill but a match of mind. If Malvo didn’t think Lester should have a gun in case he tried to kill Malvo, then Malvo wouldn’t allow himself to sleep in Lester’s presence. There’s a level of trust there that Lester thinks he should work on. First dished out by offering to kill Lester’s long time bully, and now bound by Lester helping Malvo with the bodies in Vegas. Malvo is the kind of person who offers a hand, and both hands go a long way. Lester hopes that if he gets this right, he might be able to stay on, maybe become an employee of Mr Randle too. He became good at sales only because he was good at selling the idea. Selling stories that people believed, and Malvo does it for a living in a way that’s honestly a dream. So he’ll play Malvo’s game. He’ll play it as long as he has to until the game becomes his life and he can match Malvo. He can beat him.

 

-

 

Lester wishes Malvo hadn’t said they were close to leaving because it’s all he can think about now. How many days, weeks, months he could have left. Even without knowing the exact date, he’s still counting down. He wakes up thinking, maybe it’s today. Then today passes and tomorrow’s not far off and he’s still in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Malvo gets up in the morning, leaves with his gun, and comes back with a catch before the sun sets. Lester chops wood to keep the stock in surplus, then goes around and checks his traps. In the afternoon he waits in the cabin and plays with the pets. There’s nothing left to read and he’s already heard all of Malvo’s tapes three times over, all except 2006.

He’s coming back now after checking his traps, a squirrel tied by its legs is strung over his shoulder. He comes up to the clearing he’d made around the cabin. The cabin used to be shrouded in branches and tree trunks so thick that the structure blended into the forest. With a stroke of luck, he’s never fallen a tree on top of the cabin. He’s not sure if Malvo would shoot him or walk away. Now, after Lester has chopped down the pines around the cabin, he’s made a considerable clearing. He lifts his chin as he looks around at the work he’s done. It takes a certain amount of craftsmanship to circle around the cabin and make it look landscaped. Granted, it does help that the snow covers up the stumps.

It’s quite normal to arrive and see chunks of snow kicked up around the stumps. Animals don’t know any better, and Lester doesn’t think anything of the trail of disturbed snow leading toward the cabin until he registers the smoke bursting out of the chimney. Now that’s something he should have noticed back in the forest.

Lester suddenly feels very exposed in the open. No nearby trees to give him cover, he has no choice but to slink in the snow until he reaches the wall of the cabin. Slow, as quiet as he can. He listens to the fire crackling through the chimney, and as he gets closer, he starts to hear a commotion from inside. Hand on his knife, he peeks through the back window. The corners are all fogged up and he can’t see much of anything. Just the motionless blur of inside.

He’s only ever once seen Malvo return before the sun has started to set and that was because Lester had lit the fire in protest against the imminent freeze. He’d been given a lecture about the importance of hiding and how they can get caught etcetera, etcetera, and ever since then, Malvo has been adamant about not lighting a fire until the night is dark enough to cloak the smoke. Sometimes, on the clearest of night skies, Malvo prohibits a fire at all and they suffer in their beds with hot water bottles and a mountain of furs on top.

He hears a thud, and he ducks instinctively, pressing his body as thin as he can in his puffy parka against the stone wall. Then, he distinctly hears the springs of his bed creak back and forth. Lester’s nose twitches. This is not a case of Malvo returning early, or a potential police raid. This is some idiot explorer who has made the mistake to assume this a stopover cabin, and not in fact a hideout for criminals who are going to sign this person up for an early grave if things don’t run smoothly. Lester slowly moves toward the back door, rotates the knob and is able to silently slip inside. The moment he is inside the cabin, the spring noises intensifies, coupled with the sound of moaning.

Lester’s skin wrinkles. Two distinct voices. He carefully takes off his boots so that he can walk with socked feet over the floorboards. They haven’t noticed him yet. The cries of a young man and woman. He edges closer to his bedroom and, with the door wide open, he sees them screwing on top of his bed.

Lester watches for a while. His blade in his pocket. The squirrel over his back. He watches the guy’s butt and the curve of the girl’s back and _god_ he misses watching porn. He watches them climax, heat rushing to his groin, and with heat bursting at his extremities, he takes a deep breath. Lays the dead squirrel down against the wall before heading towards his bedroom.

The girl’s eyes meet his and she screams. Kicks back to the headboard and her arms snap to cover as much of her body as she can.

The boy flips over.

“Oh my f-Jesus Christ!” He cries. A moment of fear passes to laughter.

Lester breathes deeply again. He tries to speak loud but his voice wobbles anyway, “Hey, er, you’re in my bed.”

“Oh man, you scared the shit out of me,” the guy says, then drops back on Lester’s bed laughing, “Holy shit.”

“Harrison!” The girl snaps, pawing her foot at the guy.

“You need to get out of my bed,” Lester says, “Right now, or…”

“Dude, there’s another bedroom. Just chill,” The guy says as he pulls his jeans back on.

Lester lifts one hand beside his pocket. Even through the multiple layers of fabric he can feel the shape of the blade.

“No,” Lester breathes, then firm again, “No. That’s taken too. You can’t stay here. You need to move on.”

Harrison leaps off Lester’s bed and walks straight up to him, drops his hands on Lester’s shoulders and looks him in the eye, “It’s all good, my man. We’ll sleep on the couch. We’re only going to be here one – hey, don’t I know you?”

Lester wriggles free from the guy’s grip and thrusts his hands in his pockets, right hand on the handle of his blade.

“Ellen, don’t you think he looks familiar?” The guy asks over his shoulder.

“Harrison!! Give me back my bra already!”

“No…” The guy starts, stepping back toward Lester’s bed to speak to the girl earnestly, “Don’t you remember… those two serial killers who murdered the folk in Vegas and Duluth and uh, Fargo too I think?”

“What are you _talking_ about?” The girl hisses, ruffling the sheets for her clothing.

Lester takes a step closer to the bed.

“Dude, you seriously look like one of those guys. It is _uncanny_.”

The guy takes out a flip phone and raises it as if to take a picture, but before he can press any buttons, Lester leaps forward and sinks his blade into the guy’s throat. He wrenches the blade out. The guy falls to the bed, clutching at the spot Lester cut, and his girlfriend starts to wail, high pitched. Mercilessly, Lester slashes his knife and cuts the top of the intruder’s wrist on the hand covering the first wound. When the man reacts, he leaves the wound open for Lester to scrapes the blade across the man’s throat. A sharp, straight indentation deep enough that he’ll only have seconds to live.

Lester then turns to the girl hunched against the headboard. She screams and pleads with him, shakes her head, her face wet with tears and desperate spit and Lester doesn’t heed. He grabs her by the foot. Bad move. She kicks him in the face, knocking him back. She scrambles off the bed, but in the bedroom there’s no escape with her boyfriend’s dead body dripping off the end bed, legs sprawled and Lester’s cutting off the only exit. The girl is forced into the corner. She makes herself small, as if that’s going to help. Lester grabs her head and knocks it against the wooden wall. An image of Pearl flickers in the young girl’s face. Momentary. Gone. He cuts her throat too and when Lester stands up, he wonders if Malvo keeps recording devices in every room. Could this be his first addition?

He doesn’t know what to do with the bodies straight away. He looks at the guy deflated and half naked, half on the bed, half off. And the girl sloped in the corner, her body from neck down completely caked in her own blood. Blood soaks into his bed sheets too and starts to overcome the smell of sex. Lester pushes the guy off his bed. Takes off the bedding and sheets and brings them outside. Builds a small fire and slowly feeds the soiled sheets in. Next, he supposes, are the bodies.

First he needs to get rid of the sheets. He’s not going to be able to clean them well enough in this cold and it’s easier to catch a new set of covers than to try and dry everything.

He feeds the blood clotted furs into the fire too. He can smell the stench of the fibres burning, see the finer bits of fur float out in the smoke. This is going to push back his sentence, but it’s all he could have done right? Those kids were going to blow their cover and if he couldn’t talk them out of leaving, then he did what had to be done.

Then, he hears Malvo’s voice which sounds more defeated than angry, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Lester drops the end of a bear hide in the flames as he turns to face Malvo.

But he doesn’t say anything.

And Malvo looks back at him blankly. Goes inside.

He doesn’t come out for a long time.

When Lester’s done with burning his bedding, he puts out the fire with the snow. He then goes to the back door and cracks it open. It’s quiet inside, save for a sound of a sponge slip slopping. In the cupboard beside the doorway, Lester grabs a pack of Malvo’s cigarettes. There’s not many left. Lester had a theory that once Malvo ran out of cigarettes it would be time for them to go, but mysteriously the supply seems to never run out. He plucks one cigarette out and goes outside again.

He coughs when he takes his first breath in. Honestly he’s only ever smoked twice in his life. Back in school, Bill stoles a pack from his Dad’s glove box and during lunch they went behind the gym to try it out. It was Lester, Bill, and Bill’s older brother who ran away with his friend when Lester and Bill become freshmen. Lester didn’t understand back then, why Bill’s brother took his friend with him. He’d say it to Bill sometimes, wouldn’t it be nice if they moved to another state together, got out of this place and started something. Bill would get dismissive, and all Lester meant was start a business or something along the lines, he hadn’t meant anything else by it but it was only years later that he finally understood what it meant for Bill’s family.

That’s classic Lester, really. If he ever met his past self, he’d want to slap himself in the face for being such a dumb idiot. Old Lester took things as they were, believed people on their first word and gave trust and loyalty on the basis of nothing. He didn’t question things, he didn’t think critically about why things were the way they were, he wasn’t aware of anything. He was just going through the motions of everyday life, and the kind of highs he would get were sneaking a cigarette with Bill during school hours and having to stop because Bill started experiencing an asthma attack. The only other time Lester has ever smoked was on his wedding day, as if the sudden crave to smoke wasn’t enough of a sign that maybe his future path was not the one to take with Pearl.

Lester jumps when he hears the back door slam open. Malvo comes out dragging two big black bags. He glances at Lester and with a slight nod of his head, Lester walks over to him.

“Help me get them on the sled,” Malvo instructs him.

Lester nods and goes around the side of the cabin to grab the bobsled leaning against the wall. He brushes off the snow then pushes it down, slides it across to Malvo. He then helps the man pull the body bags on top of the slats.

“I’ll grab some rope. It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Lester says, nodding toward the snow covered clearing.

After the two bags are tied securely to the sled, Malvo throws some more equipment on top of the bags, then moves off. Lester walks with him. He hasn’t really explored too deeply into the Nicolet national park himself. His internal compass isn’t reliable enough to plunge himself too far from the cabin.

“Pull this with me. We have to move fast, Lester. The bears are going to smell the blood a mile away.”

Together they pull the sled across the snow and into the forest thickets. After about an hour, they reach a sudden drop into a clearing. A vast ice lake opens out like pristine marble floors of cathedrals Lester had seen only in text books. The mountainside only begins on the horizon, cropping the lake out for miles and miles. Malvo takes the sled down to the shore of the ice lake. Before he takes the sled out on the surface, he lifts a bear trap from the sled and lowers it to the ground.

“They’ll be chasing the scent. We’ll leave a different way,” Malvo says, crouching by the trap, “Jesus Lester, don’t just stand there, help me set this up.”

Lester blinks and drops to his knees. He puts one gloved hand over the closed teeth of the trap and Malvo slaps his hand away.

“Not like that. You going to do it that way and you’re going to get your hand ripped off.”

Malvo instructs him on what part of the trap to hold and together they crank the teeth wide open. Lester get to his feet again but he loses his footing and accidentally kicks the trigger of the trap. He lurches back in time, and Malvo jumps away with a snarl on his face.

“Aw jeez!” Lester cries.

Malvo glares at him. The crunch from the trap rings in Lester’s ears.

Without a second thought, Malvo crouches down again and instructs on Lester to help set the trap. Afterwards, Lester eases backwards, careful not to set off the trap as he stands up. Malvo eyes him the whole time, and when they have both reached a safe distance away from the trap, they start to pull the sled out onto the lake.

Malvo starts off chiselling the ice, making sure that the damage doesn’t cause a large crack to break out over the surface. Once a safe spot is isolated, he starts to drill into the ice manually. Lester stands by awkwardly, waiting for instruction. He glances at the black bags swollen with air and it registers to him that inside are the dead bodies of two people he just killed but that realization is far off in his mind. What’s taking up the majority of his thinking is the memory of them fucking on top of his bed. He can’t get the image out of his mind. And every time he recalls it, heat rushes to all the wrong places and he starts to feel light headed and dizzy and he tries to then focus on Malvo drilling but then he gets distracted by freaking Lorne Malvo. The way he has to lean over slightly to push his weight down on the drill, the way his arm cranks the lever round and around again, a bored look on his face with a hint of annoyance, his lip caught between his teeth.

He can’t pass it off as Stockholm syndrome because Lester is caught in a technicality where the truth is, he went with Malvo willingly. He went into hiding willingly and willingly subjected himself to a seemingly infinite amount of time starving himself of sex and Lester is livid. Sure, in the afternoons waiting for Malvo to return he’s jerked himself off just to pass the time. But he yearns to be touched. To thrust his cock in something hot and wet and sometimes cranking himself off, round and around, just isn’t enough.

A loud splash breaks Lester from his reverie.

The bright shades of white break apart into their distinct colours in time for Lester to identify Malvo dropping the second black bag into the hole he has made in the ice. Weighted with stones, the bag sinks into the dense water. Cold water splashes out of the hole and onto the icy surface of the lake, droplets landing just inches away from Lester’s feet. He stares at the droplets which glisten in the setting sun and quickly solidify.

“It’s getting dark,” Malvo says, having walked passed Lester.

When they get back to the shore, the bear trap lies partially covered in snow. Malvo walks in course for it, but walks around it without catching. Lester pulls the sled with the equipment roped on it all the way back to the cabin. No smoke rises from the chimney.

“Go check your traps,” Malvo tells him as Lester puts away the equipment and sled.

“I already did. I left a squirrel inside.”

Malvo nods.

Inside, Lester glares at his bed. Blood is soaked into the mattress, and it smells like sex still, or maybe he just wants to smell it. Makes his nose flare and lips dry despite the cold inside the cabin.

“It’s dark out, I’ll light the fire,” Lester says, but Malvo catches his arm before he can turn.

“Don’t.”

“Ugh, but I’m _freezing_ , Lorne.”

Malvo squints at him, “Have a bath. I’ll heat up some water for you.”

Lester frowns back, surprised at the expression of kindness, but he doesn’t question it. He goes into the bathroom and peels off his dirty clothes. Beyond the bathroom door he can hear Malvo setting a kettle on the stove. Lester spins the taps on and stares as the cold water starts to fill up the bath. Water droplets splash onto the basin of the tub and he thinks back to Malvo dropping the black bags into the white lake. How they’ll be sinking down into the frosty waters and freeze and come summertime, when the snow melts and the ice gives way to rivers pouring into the lake, they’ll thaw. From the bottom of the clear lake, the sun will shine, and they’ll see the light.

He leans over the tub and spins the taps off, having filled up about a third of the tub. He sits on the edge. Cold mist lifts off the still surface. The kettle should have been boiled by now. Maybe the sound of the water filling the bath overpowered the sound of Malvo knocking. He grabs a towel and wraps it around himself before cracking the door open.

The cabin is dark now. All candles out. He crosses to the small kitchenette. Hand over the stove, cold. Shivering, he walks passed the rubble in the fireplace in a naïve hope for a glimpse of heat. Around the armchairs and toward the bedrooms. Malvo’s door is left open. In the darkness, Lester can see a rise and fall in the sheets. Unsteady breathing from the sick dog. Snoring from Malvo.

He tip toes back to the bathroom and bunches up a corner of the towel to dab water across his skin. A poor man’s shower. After, he ducks into his own bedroom for a moment to grab something to sleep in, but opts to rest on the arm chair in front of an imagined fire.

Briefly he looks across into Malvo’s bedroom and entertains the idea of climbing in bed with the animals. What a joke. Wonders if Malvo will notice. Wonders if Malvo wears something to bed. Long johns or nothing? Best way to get warm is to lie naked with another person. It’s a stretch to think that’s what Malvo meant by trying to help Lester get warm again. An offer in words and an invitation in action. And what if he did? Climb into bed with Malvo. With his captor. His partner. Naked side by side. God, it would be the first time in _months_ he would have touched someone else.

Lester squirms in the arm chair, eyes scrunched closed, thighs rubbing together from the cold, and from the heat. He shouldn’t think about it. Malvo’s not… Malvo doesn’t talk about women but he doesn’t talk about men either. He doesn’t talk about his past life and he doesn’t talk about anything much at all. It’s just, Lester’s _starved_ for attention. Starved for touch and talk and it’s not like he’s falling in love with Malvo – far from it – it’s just that he’s horny. Being cooped up like this, it’s not right. It’s making him think weird things. Like climbing into bed with Malvo. And touching him. Touching his collarbone and neck and holding his chin and kissing him and _fuck_.

Lester leans back in the chair and shoves his rigid hands down into his pants. The heat helps with thawing his fingers. Helps his joints move and curl around his hardening cock. He rubs his feet together, paws at his dick and encourages it to harden. He thinks of kissing Malvo, wonders what he tastes like, wonders if Malvo’s lips are as soft as they look under all the facial hair. He bets Malvo uses teeth. Bets, or wants. Wants Malvo to kiss him, then bite him, nibble his neck and bite his shoulder and turn him over, feel Malvo’s hands running down his spine, hand on his ass. Lester hitches his pyjama bottoms down around his knees, a silent gasp at the cold air but he’s too deep in this hot fantasy for it to bother him too much.

Malvo could hold Lester by his hips and run his tongue down from Lester’s tailbone. He could find Lester’s hole, and lick, and thrust his hot tongue inside. Lester throws his head back on the chair as he rapidly pulls his foreskin over his head and back down, up and around, round and around. He threads his forefinger on his left hand into his mouth, sucks on it, imagines Malvo thrusting his tongue deep inside Lester’s hole at the same time. His right hand on his dick, pinkie finger pushing down on his balls at every down sweep, and he imagines Malvo trying to reach inside his hole as far as his tongue can reach, and how he might grate his teeth on the skin around Lester’s hole. In frustration, in determination. Lester comes at the very thought with a gargled groan. He spits his finger out and grabs a cushion, trying to stifle his orgasm, but still ends up sounding like a wild animal in the quiet night.

Lester keeps his eyes shut in his afterglow. Soaks into the slope of the arm chair. Cold sinking into him again. And the fantasy of Malvo’s teeth on his skin lingers like the realness of the passing night and the oncoming day.

 

-

 

The sun is already high, peeling through the lifting winter.

When Lester finally arises from his chair, all Malvo says to his turned back is, “We’re leaving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already read 'call it a favour', now would be a good time! The next chapter leads on from the events of lornemalvoofficial's gorgeous fic!  
> Anyway, hope you guys like this so far :) there will be more plot with porn soon!


	2. Abuse (Control)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partially set before and after lornemalvoofficial's 'call it a favor'.

Suppose they have to leave. There would be search parties. They’re no longer safe where they are.

 

-

 

After pulling off the highway and into Cable, Malvo turns the engine off outside a crop of run down offices blinking neon against the dull sky. Malvo gets out and he doesn’t look back and Lester wonders if he’s meant to go with.

He winds down the window, “I’ll just stay here, then?”

Malvo glances over his shoulder, his teeth locked in terse unspoken words.

“Is that a yes, then?”

Malvo turns toward the buildings. Pushes through a white glass panelled door.

The sign out front looks like it’s been pasted over a hundred times, a different name, different owners, a whole other business. Malvo’s in a long time. Makes Lester nervous. He peers around the what he can see of the side of the buildings. Watches for a runner. And when Malvo does kick out of the office door again, Lester expects Malvo to come out with directions to a new safe house but instead he comes out with directions to danger.

Malvo gets in the car again. The door slams, zips the cool air in tight. He drops a plastic bag on in the cup holder. Inside it contains a new ID and a bottle of dark brown hair dye.

He doesn’t start the car yet.

“Thought I’d be gone by now?” Lester asks.

Malvo holds the key in the ignition, idling.

“If you’re going to stick around you better learn quick how not to be messy.”

“If I don’t, you’ll frame me.”

“You betcha.”

 

-

 

Lester never questions why Malvo keeps booking rooms with only double beds at any hotel they stay in. He guesses he must be some kind of burden to Malvo. If Malvo had been the one to encounter the couple in the cabin, he could have talked them into moving on. Could have assumed a fake identity and dispelled any correlation they could have made between Malvo and Lester and the murderers that they are. And even if the kids didn’t fall for tricks, Malvo, without a doubt, could have wasted them better than Lester had.

Malvo isn’t much of a teacher. Not in ways that Lester’s accustomed to anyway. There’s no tutorial where he’s allowed to read over the material, no demonstration to go by.

“I’m not going to hold your hand, Lester.”

Malvo simply instructs him in what he’s to do and Lester’s expected to replicate the action without mistakes. The kind of feedback he gets is expressed through Malvo’s disdain, his curled lip or surprised nod. Except it’s not like the instructions are hard to understand. He only needs a run through once and he understands what Malvo’s trying to do. Thanks to Malvo, he knows there are easier ways to get rid of people without spilling blood everywhere. Sometimes making a mess is necessary though. A messy death as punishment for a deal gone wrong. A clean death for a good price. That’s not only part of the business but part of the fun, for Malvo. It’s how Malvo shows what his work is worth. And Lester’s only scratching the surface of the skill, because it’s not always about killing. It’s about manipulation. About getting people to tell him information they wouldn’t otherwise shed. He bets Malvo knows a hundred different ways to wrap people around his finger and he wonders if Malvo will reveal enough to let Lester wrap Malvo around his. Let Malvo wrap his lips around Lester’s finger and _suck_.

The first handful of jobs Lester didn’t even touch a person. He surveyed for Malvo. Collected information, watched through binoculars or listened through closed doors. He didn’t have the clearance to make a suggestion yet. Didn’t have the respect in his audience to propose an alternative. In time, he might. Until then, he stands back and observes.

Malvo never quits, though. He’s always working. When he’s not building a relationship with his targets, he’s thinking about how he’s going to get into people’s heads next. Devising new kinds of ways he can trick them and make them think the world’s against them when really, it’s one person – soon two – placing invisible bear traps and thin ice over their future. It’s only a matter of time before Malvo allows Lester to help with that part too.

Strangely, or not strangely enough, he doesn’t have much of a problem with the violence side of things. The first time Malvo shot a person right in front of him, the body lost all life before it hit the dusty ground and Lester didn’t feel a thing. Face blank, all covered in blood and dripping brains.

Malvo had asked him about it.

“Did you see her?”

“See who?”

“Your wife. In their face.”

And he realizes that he hasn’t thought about Linda since Vegas. He hopes she hasn’t taken over the business. The bitch wouldn’t let him change her name so she better not have had the gall to change the name of his shop.

“What was her name? Pearl?”

“Eh? Oh, Pearl? Never.”

And so maybe Malvo hasn’t talked openly about jobs with him yet, hasn’t asked for his input or listened properly to Lester’s critiques on the plan, either way, he does like to think that he has a place beside Lorne Malvo – as his partner in crime. If Malvo didn’t think he had potential, if he didn’t think Lester’s learning and might one day be on equal footing, then wouldn’t Malvo have dropped him on the curb a long time ago? Or killed him, or framed him like he’d said he would. Malvo must see something in him, or else Lester dangerously entertains the idea that Malvo actually _likes_ him. Likes having Lester around even if he sucks at holding back even after their target’s heart has stopped. Likes driving far and wide to reach their target and casually chatting with Lester because who would have guessed it, Malvo’s kind of a chatty guy and maybe he likes what Lester has to say. Maybe Malvo books dumb double bed rooms because he wants to keep Lester as close as possible without it getting weird.

But heck.

It’s weird and close as fuck.

It’s really pushing Lester’s ability to think straight and keeps things strictly professional because it’s been almost a _year_ since they left their safe house and quickies in the shower or trips to the red room in the lights district don’t always satiate him when he faces the fact that he’s got to go to bed the next night with Lorne Malvo sleeping naked beside him. Jeez Louise is he looking forward to the nights getting too cold for Malvo not to shrug on something extra to sleep in.

He’s been managing it, okay? Trying to. Works better when they get free time – if they get free time. The job can be their life sometimes. Two months here, three months there. Their freedom cut up between Malvo spending time with their target and Lester in the car with the recording equipment. If he’s lucky, the strip club is part of the game and he can go and get dirty in the dingy town that they’re in and bust a nut in exchange for a couple of hundreds. If he’s alone he’ll pick the older gents, the ones greying and slender and get that heat off his chest.

And hell, he’ll pay for it as many times as he can get it because money doesn’t matter to him anymore. He’s got a bag full of cash and it’s not going towards a house in the burbs or a shine new car anymore. That’s what he worked for before, now he works for the lifestyle of a hit man and serial liar. The money’s only a slight benefit the more jobs he takes on. The fun’s in the stories they tell. And all Lester has to do is try and keep to the edge of the bed as much as possible.

Which is nearly _im_ possible when Lester wakes up late in the morning and sees Malvo still naked in bed next to him.

That _never_ happens.

Malvo _always_ gets up before Lester.

Lester thinks he’s pretty smart in feigning sleep and listening to Malvo’s movements. Sometimes he would risk cracking an eye open and catches the white glow of the street lamps pressing in on the blinds, slivers of light like the sharp glint of a blade cutting over Malvo’s old, lanky body. Malvo would dress himself, slow, practised quiet. Careful to lift his belt by the buckle, not let the clip make a noise. Then dress shirt over singlet. A turtleneck as the air gets crisp, craning his beautiful neck.

Lester would lie stone cold in the bed, faux deep sleep, true deep concentration on Malvo’s gloved hands twisting the door knob. The more run down hotel doors click loud even if Malvo spends three steady minutes turning the knob. Lester would watch him freeze. Wait. Then pull the door behind him and leave it ajar with the morning air whistling through the smallest gap.

Through the slits in the blinds Lester would watch Malvo lean against the balcony running the line of units. Smoke a cigarette, and another, and another. Watch the sunrise then disappear out of the periphery of the window. Whenever Lester’s washed up and dressed, he can always find Malvo down in the lobby chatting with the receptionist or with some traveller ticking the time away before the places of interest open at 9am.

But not this time.

Lester can feel Malvo’s presence even before he opens his eyes. Feels the weight of his partner’s body lightly across the firm mattress. He’s not going to lie. He’s still thinking about last night. About the cold steel cylinder in his mouth and how he had wished it was the heat of Malvo’s dick instead, and how Malvo had instead sucked him. With his lips. Malvo’s lips and mouth and tongue and _teeth_. He sucks in a quick breath to quiet a semi and, eyes still closed, he hears Malvo move beside him.

He dares to open his eyes.

Malvo appears to be asleep still. Mouth open. Malvo has the kind of teeth that are so long and thin that it looks like the man has twice the amount of teeth in his mouth than normal. All straight and sharp and slick with saliva. And beneath his lips, his goatee… there’s something crusty there, white. Heat drips from the back of Lester’s neck right down to his core, like a mercury filled thermometer turned upside down. Heat traps around his head, and with the crack in the glass, the hot mercury spills down his back, down to his groin, record temperature.

Lester turns his stomach into the mattress, presses his groin into the firm bedding and tries not to grind his hips. Don’t disturb him.  
_Tomorrow we’ll figure out whether we forget about this._

Lester tenses his whole body. What’s he meant to do now? Is he going to have to sit down with Malvo and hash it all out? Or is he going to let Malvo get up, look in the mirror and fucking shoot Lester’s brains out out of sheer embarrassment? More like rage. A cold snap. Still, he can’t take his eyes off the dried cum in Malvo’s goatee. _He_ did that. Lester did that to Malvo’s face and Malvo let it happen, let himself fall asleep with a mark. Does he _know_?

Malvo grunts and Lester snaps his eyes shut. His eyelids surely too wrinkled to look asleep. He hears Malvo yawn and feels the lift in the mattress as Malvo sits up, pushes off. He pads around the bed toward the bathroom. The water in the sink gushes. Lester turns his head over to squint at the open bathroom door. Sees Malvo bent over the sink, sleepy eyes watchful of the water curling down the drain. Then, Lester observes Malvo looking at himself in the mirror.

Malvo’s eyes go wide.

Lester’s eyes go wide.

Malvo, gripping the counter, turns to look at Lester pressed in on the mattress.

Lester stares back at Malvo’s sour face, his thighs clenching, his hands clawing at his pillow. _Fuck_. How is he still so hard? The look in Malvo’s eyes alone should shoot anyone down.

Malvo leaves the tap running and steps back into the bedroom. His eyes glance to his handgun resting on Lester’s bedside table. Covered in dried spit.

Lester could grab it before Malvo.

But he doesn’t.

And maybe he should have.

Malvo lunges toward his gun, snatches it and all within these seconds, Lester turns on his back and scrambles up against the headboard, hands up, don’t shoot. Malvo snarls at him. _Snarls_. And he forces his knee down on Lester’s left hip, pins him down with that an the barrel of Malvo’s gun pressed square in the middle of his chest. And still, Lester doesn’t soften.

How can he with heat from Malvo’s naked thigh so close to his dick?

Lester swallows.

Malvo smirks.

And he grabs Lester’s dick through his boxers and starts rubbing through the cloth. Starts fucking jerking him off right there with his knee on Lester’s hip and a gun pointed at his heart.

And Lester’s barely holding on.

He sinks his head into the pillow, arches his back, tries to paw his boxers off but Malvo pokes his fingers away with the barrel of his gun. The gun goes back to its previous spot when Lester puts his arms back by his side, hot and fidgeting, and Malvo wears this disgusting smirk that reveals Malvo’s teeth and Lester almost goes blind just thinking about what Malvo did to him last night. What he’s doing to him now. Good, but not as good. If he could just remove his boxers and get skin to skin, it would be better. If he could get Malvo off too…

He glances down at Malvo’s naked form but the man doesn’t look hard. He should be. Lester’s a good looking guy, and the kind of act Malvo’s performing for him now? How could Malvo _not_ be hard? Lester lifts his hand again and goes to fondle Malvo but before he can touch, he suddenly finds that he can’t hear anymore.

Dust and stuffing float out from his left, his hearing fizzling out from a high pitched bang to the easy creaking of the mattress and the light stretch of satin as Malvo continues to pump Lester, despite having fired a bullet beside the man beneath him. Lester blinks, his hips curl into Malvo’s touch without much thought and okay, so he can’t touch, but he can sit here in crackling noise like an out of tune radio. And watch. He thinks Malvo might have laughed. Couldn’t hear it. Could feel it though. For a moment. And can see the curve in his mouth and Malvo’s tongue slip across his teeth as he brings a thumb underneath the curve of Lester’s balls, pushes, and pulls his grip up in a screw motion.

Breathing starts to get harder when Malvo brings the gun to his neck, not because he’s pressing too hard but because Lester can’t hold on any longer even though he wants to see what Malvo’s going to do next. How many death traps does Malvo have going for Lester? How many courses of action can he take before Lester’s left raw and weeping and still wanting. Still thirsty for Malvo’s seed, for Malvo’s dick up inside his ass because what he’s given is only a taste of what’s to come.

Lester wants to touch. Needs to meet Malvo’s adrenalin where it runs through his veins, through his fingertips, through the tip of his cock. With one hand he holds Malvo’s wrist, his fingers covering Malvo’s over the trigger of the gun and he holds Malvo’s eyes. Squinting. His own eyes lidded and as sultry as he can master, and with that distraction, he sneaks his other hand up to grip Malvo’s dick.

Then Lester feels Malvo’s forefinger pull the trigger.

Breathless.

A dull click, and nothing.

Nothing to hear, nothing to see.

White fades to colour and soundlessness to their panting, to Malvo’s tight lipped grunt and Lester’s heaving. Dick weeping. Hands slipping to his sides. Then Lester watches with submission as Malvo raises his gun and whacks Lester right in the forehead, knocks him out.

 

-

 

Lester wakes up with a stiff neck and his arms tucked in underneath the seatbelt of Malvo’s choice car of the day. He blinks. Malvo must’ve dressed him unless he’s completely forgotten that after getting jerked off by Malvo, they’d both gotten dressed like normal adults and got strapped into a car. Except that it’s not the same car as before, and Lester _does not_ _remember_.

His head hurts too. A lump forming on his forehead near his hairline. He massages it with his thumb and in the corner of his eye he spots a sandwich wrapped up in gladwrap poking out of the open glove box. Briefly he recalls that prisoners are given a good feed before they’re taken to the chair. A good stuffing with their last meal and prayers and off they go. Except the car is only locked from the inside.

He pinches the lock between his fingers and pulls it up. All the locks in the doors come free at once like a round of gunfire.

But he doesn’t leave.

Malvo comes back after a couple of hours with blood on the cuff of his overcoat and a handgun in a sealed plastic bag. He drops it on the cup holders as he closes the door but before he starts the car up, Lester’s snatched open the plastic bag and presses the barrel against Malvo’s temple.

“Drive,” Lester instructs him.

One hand grips the steering wheel, the other holds the keys dangling beside Malvo’s leg.

Lester pushes the gun against Malvo’s temple until the skin dimples, “I said, drive.”

Malvo gives him a side look, “What, are you going to shoot me?”

Lester frowns. Clocks the gun to the side and quickly fires at the driver’s side window just an inch away from Malvo’s face. He expects the glass to shatter and braces for the deafening gunshot sound, but nothing breaks. The gun simply clicks.

“Rookie mistake, Lester. Always check your rounds.”

Malvo grins, a slight shake in his head. He turns the keys in the ignition, but keeps the car rumbling.

“Come now, Lester.”

Lester never drops the gun. Holds the useless weapon against Malvo’s head and he tells him to drive anyway.

“That’s it,” Malvo eases.

Lester tells him to drive to the next town, two towns over where the air smells worse and the hotels look run down and dead.

He tells Malvo to get out of the car.

Get into the room.

And get down on his knees.


	3. Choose (Control)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Lorne's pov.)
> 
> Lorne stops by at an old safe house on their way to a big job, but the contents of a well used filing cabinet starts Lester questioning when his codependency on Lorne will cease. If it will cease.

Lorne’s bank account isn’t tied to anything formal, it’s more like a stash hidden away in the state park of Devils Lake, North Dakota. If he was forced to call somewhere home he supposed he’d call it that, but there’s no address to the thing, barely even a road to it. If you weren’t sure it was there, there would be no way for you to find it. That’s how it’s always been and how it always should be. It comes in the form of an old weather station with a gravel road long fallen away to overgrowth. There’s not often a reason to go back to it because there’s always a job, and his employer always ensures that there’s a way to get his necessities delivered to him on the go.

The only reason he even has a fixed location for himself is for a place to keep his various identifications. He doesn’t normally like to keep hold of his IDs but sometimes he has to, when the office is moving and all backups and copies are shredded then burnt. And Lorne won’t carry it with him. What kind of amateur would he be if he was caught with two or more different IDs on him? Although, the only knowingly risky possession he always keeps with him is his case of tapes. As a sort of protection, but also pleasant reminders. For those nights he can’t sleep. For the nights Lester keeps him up too early into the morning and if he shuts his eyes he’s going to sleep through his alarm for sure. May as well stay up and get in the mood for a good round.

There are always jobs but they’re in between work at the moment. There are offers going around but there’s no rush to take on anything unsatisfactory. Devil’s Lake happens to be not on the way but around the way to drop site for a job they both have taken a liking to. There’s time before they have to start, so Lorne takes him in.

Lester looks through the filing cabinet and pulls out a file from the P section. Lorne was a man of Christ for half an hour while the, now deceased, Mr Rundle took photos for this identity. The key is to make just enough online information for it to seem convincing enough that the searcher doesn’t dig any further. A good web page, a list of reliable contacts, some history and some news articles not directly connected to the website. Lorne’s terrible with all that mess. That’s what his employer is for. They provide his identity, he plays the part and delivers. Of course when an employer’s a friend of his enemies and starts crossing some Ts a little too clear and sharp, he has to do something about it. If the folk up at Fargo had heard anything about him, they should have known what was coming. They got what they deserved for thinking themselves any better.

His new employer, Mr Randle, is too much of a freshman for Lorne to completely rely on. That’s why he’s stopping by, to pick up an old ID he hasn’t used in a while. Give the newbie some time to pick up the pieces and get their business back on track. You could say Lorne’s currently freelancing. The job they’re going towards isn’t necessarily company issued, instead heard about from word of mouth. These kinds of jobs can come with all kinds of risks but it’s better than the safer stuff Mr Randle has proposed. Besides, Lorne can see Lester’s skin rippling with adrenalin and maybe he’d agreed with himself long ago that if that energy ever reduced in Lester to how he was for the majority of his years in Duluth, then Lorne would drop him. But by God does he want to see how far he can keep Lester running, keep him burning infinite gas until fossil fuels expire and he’s running on empty, maybe still then Lester will ask Lorne for more.

Lorne doesn’t have to hope for it because he knows in his heart it’s true. Lester’s an unstoppable force and all it took was Lorne igniting courage in Lester.

The difference was, he wasn’t trying to be anyone when he met Lester. He was just Lorne Malvo. Honest to God. Due to his line of work, Lorne has been dozens of people, some only similar in profession and others solely in appearance. He’s charmed people, fucked people, blackmailed and threatened people to get a job done. He’s played the long game - the most five years - and he’s played the short game in three minutes flat. Being away from the game, holed up in a cabin in the winter isn’t his ideal. Despite what others might think, he quite likes people. Or, at least, he finds them fascinating. He likes getting inside their head and working out how they think. How easily some carry a conversation, and how strangely some make their input. And that may be part of why he’s kept Lester around far longer than anyone else.

“If there’s one thing I have learnt,” Lester starts as he puts Lorne’s Frank Peterson file back in, looks for other familiar names, “about selling life insurance is that there aren’t 500 million people in this country, there are, at the most, 7 different types of people multiplied across the country. If I sold in Duluth or in Vegas or in Washington D.C., I’d see the same set of people every time. Some people think they’re different or quirky, well, I’ll tell you they’re not because I’ve met them five times before. And they all want the one thing, the best thing that I can offer them. The grandest lie.”

“Easy there soldier, you were top salesman for what, barely a year?” Lorne chides.

Lester looks at him with a glint in his eyes, “I’m a fast learner, Malvo.”

Lorne breaks a soft smile, “Some of these IDs can be recycled because they rely on that very idea. The same story works on the same kinds of people in different locations. Saves having to remember too many fake details about yourself.”

“You don’t want to stick to the same lie, either. Frank Peterson at large in several different states is going to start raising questions,” Lester says.

Lester pulls up a dusty stool to the filing cabinet and as he eases onto the chair, he ushers Lorne closer. Wraps one arm around Lorne’s waist as he reads through a file.

“Are there any you can’t use anymore?” Lester asks, eyes trained on a document, hand on Lorne’s hip bone.

“Only a handful. Sometimes names aren’t necessary for a job.”

Lester nods.

“Have you ever been blonde?” Lester quips.

He pinches Lorne’s ass briefly, then goes back to reading.

Lester isn’t afraid to die.

He demonstrated that when he helped Lorne dispose of the bodies from the elevator. At first, that’s why Lorne agreed to have Lester learn from him. You can’t be in this line of business if you’re afraid of death. Beyond thinking himself impervious to the law, Lester never ceases to surprise Lorne. What Lester is capable of… is astounding. Lorne makes the mistake of judging Lester, and Lester moves beyond interpretation leaving Lorne guessing and golly does Lorne love a good riddle. Loves it when Lester makes him feel like he isn’t a ghost walking the Earth, but the devil, flesh and bone and breathing hot sins down Lester’s collar.

He supposes that once he has Lester all figured out, he’s not worth keeping around. Lester will meet his fate the moment he resolves to his weak, old identity.

 “Dr. Michaelson… Hey, is this who you were in Vegas?”

Lorne’s lips twitch at the feel of Lester’s hand returning to his ass, “Mm. That’s right, Lester.”

“You were a dentist… what if you accidentally wrecked up a kid’s tooth?”

“I _am_ a trained dentist, Lester,” He says, then relents, “Or, rather, I know enough to get me by. Part of the scam is to make your story partially true. Helps with others believing it. ‘Course it helps when you’ve done something with your life.”

“Hey, no, that’s –“

Lorne snatches the file from Lester’s hand and shoves it back in the filing cabinet swiftly.

“And a year in the field doesn’t mean anything.”

Lorne feels Lester’s grip on his hip tighten like a claw. Nails digging in. A quick pivot and Lester pulls Lorne in between his spread legs. Lester’s gun pressed against the aged cotton of his loose T-shirt.

Lorne looks down at Lester in the dimness of the room. Dust coils in the shafts of light peeking through cracks in the glass windows. Lust glows darkly in Lester’s eyes, in the tongue across his lips, in the tightening of fabric in his pants.

Lorne says, “You may be a fast learner but you don’t know anything yet.”

“I’ll shoot you if you keep talking that way to me.”

Lester applies pressure to the gun tip on Lorne’s hip and swiftly brings it up to Lorne’s shoulder, forces him down on his knees.

“Lester,” Lorne breathes. It’s nothing of a warning and more of an expression of want.

Lester wraps his palm around Lorne’s neck, pulls the skin taught to see Lorne’s Adam’s apple rise as he swallows.

“I know enough,” Lester growls, “I must be on Mr Randle’s good books by now. Soon I’ll get my promotion and we can part ways and I won’t have to deal with you talking down on me like this without killing you because, like it or not, Malvo, I am –“ Lester stops when Lorne starts bursting out with laughter. “What? What is it?”

Lorne wheezes, actual tears of laughter welling in his eyes, “ _Promotion_?? What exactly do you think this is, Lester?”

Lester sits back on the stool, his back very straight and his head very pulled back into his neck.

“Don’t you… after every job don’t you go to see Mr Randle and put in a report?”

Lorne blinks for a moment, then sits on his heels as he continues purely laugh.

“You think that-“ Lorne coughs through laughter, “You think that I write up some kind of _paperwork_ and, what? Write commendations about my companion who happens to do a good job every once in a while?”

Lorne suddenly changes his demeanour. He grits his teeth.

“It doesn’t work like that, Lester. I find out about a job, I do it, I get my pay, and then I work another job. If there was paperwork there would be _records_ and you can’t have records with the kind of work I do.”

In a rage fuelled snap, Lester kicks the filing cabinet with his boot and spits, “What about this, then?”

Lorne glances at the filing cabinet, dust billowing from where Lester had kicked it from its decades old position.

Slowly he eases to a standing position, speaking with tired effect.

“No one knows where this is. Do you know how to get here? Or, more importantly, do you know how to find Mr Randle? You can’t find him without me and if you came in with me uninvited, the best you could hope for seeing the carpet as the last thing you saw instead of the meek face of Mr Randle, knowing that _he_ was the one who sent you to hell.”

Lester pushes off the stool and lets it clatter to the dusty ground. “This is unfair. Am I meant to leech of you for the rest of my life?! You’re gatekeeping me.”

Lorne blinks and laughs again, “ _Gatekeeping_??”

“ _Shut the fuck up!_ ” Lester scowls. He cocks his gun at Lorne again. Aims at his heart. “If you c-“

And both Lester and Lorne freeze. Lester’s about to say _care_. He’s about to say _if you care about me_ like there’s something between them. Like Lorne could give a fuck about what Lester actually _feels_.

Lester spits viciously, “You should know by now that this is what I want to do. I want your job. I want your lifestyle. I thought I was doing what I had to do to get it. Or do I have to earn the medal of killing you in order to take your place?”

Lorne sees the ideas connect in Lester’s mind and he can feel Lester grind the barrel into his chest. Doesn’t even flinch when he hears the trigger click.

The gunpowder fizzles but there’s no pull back. No ear splintering noise that gets Lorne’s tinnitus ringing.

For a moment, they both kind of stand there, shocked.

Then, Lester pulls the gun back and rips out the ammo compartment, and while Lester is checking out a very much loaded gun, Lorne swats it out of his hand and pushes Lester to the ground.

Either the push or the dud gun winds Lester, and he says dumbly, “What…. What happened?”

Part of him is pissed off that the gun didn’t go off, part of him is getting hot at the idea that Lester even tried.

“Why didn’t it fi-ughhh!”

Lester cuts himself off the moment Lorne thrusts his hand down Lester’s pants, the button popping, the zipper ripping open.

“You are a singular man, Lester Nygaard.”

Lester looks up at him with a glimmer of hope in his eyes which quickly darken. Before Lester can make a reply, Lorne seals his lips over Lester’s. He’s never been very good at kissing. Just kind of smacks his lips against the other person’s and hopes they’re into it. Lester gets all handsy and tonguesy and he supposes it doesn’t matter how awful he is at kissing because Lester’s like a horny teenager almost all of the time anyway. He writhes underneath Lorne’s weight, grinds his hips into Lorne’s hand, forces Lorne to pump him. Lorne finds it impressive, if anything. How the guy, at 45, can have so much in him.

Lorne whispers harshly into Lester’s ear, “Your dick is already dripping for me.”

Lester’s breath ghosts over the O shape cut into Lorne’s T-shirt. Lorne shucks off Lester’s pants, kicks them away into the dirty darkness of the room. He seizes Lester’s weeping dick and moves the foreskin gently up and down, achingly slow. He keeps his other hand on Lester’s shoulder, keeps him pressed to the ground with the help of his knee on Lester’s hip.

“You can’t resist me,” Lorne coos.

Lester swallows, and he actually lifts his shirt up to reveal his hard nipples. Lorne smirks, and dips down to snatch Lester’s left nipple in between his teeth. He nibbles at the hard nub, hears Lester moaning and writhing and in the corner of his eye, he can see Lester’s hand clenching too tight around the fabric of his pulled up shirt.

Like the failed gunshot, he stops.

He pulls back. Cuts contact. From skin to skin, to skin to air.

Lester tries to follow Lorne’s movement like elastic but Lorne pushes him back down to the floor with his knee, careful of his angle so Lester’s straining erection won’t make contact.

Lester sits up and snarls, “You like this, don’t you? Holding me back. Watching me suffer.”

Lorne holds his gaze for a moment. Cold and stern.

Then relents, only for Lester.

He grabs Lester’s dick again and tugs him slowly. Lester lies flat on the ground again, his shirt hitching up to reveal his china white skin again. Lester’s hand creeps to Lorne’s head and Lorne lets Lester push him down, lets Lester lead him to do what he desires. Lorne crouches and under Lester’s guidance, he lowers his head to Lester’s dick. He drags his tongue from the tip to the base, and when he takes his tongue into his mouth momentarily, he can see Lester’s body tensing.

“Malvo don’t-“

But he stops the moment Lorne’s tongue darts out again, starting at the base. He doesn’t lift, instead, he lowers. He cups Lester’s under thighs in his palms and hitches Lester partially on his lap until Lester rolls his back into the right position, legs bent and spread wide so that Lorne can drag his tongue down to Lester’s hole. It puckers the moment Lorne probes the outer ring. Lester moans as Lorne laps at the entrance, just the tip of Lorne’s tongue inside the hot channel gets Lester to clench his ass around Lorne’s tongue.

Lester creeps his hand up to his dick even knowing Lorne’s rules, but he can’t seem to help himself. Lorne lets this one slide, considering the things he’d said to Lester earlier, and he continues to use his tongue to explore Lester’s caverns. He starts off slow, slow and steady wins the race. He’s careful of over stimulating Lester, too. Going fast can mean Lester’s done in a matter of minutes, whereas if Lorne keeps his current pace, he can draw out Lester’s lust far longer, long enough that he starts to feel something happening downstairs too.

Lorne circles in slow twists, carefully lathering Lester’s walls, encouraging them to relax so he might fit his tongue in deeper. But there’s only so far he can go before his teeth get in the way, and really, he knows that’s Lester’s favourite part. There’s not much of biting that he can do, but he can teeth Lester’s sensitive skin around his hole as he thrusts his tongue in some shambles of rhythmic motion. With each sharp gnaw he hears Lester yelp a sort of strangled moan, and Lorne lets one of Lester’s legs free as he touches Lester’s dick, just to see how much he’s cried for him. It’s sticky wet, hot and throbbing.

Lorne pops his tongue out with a smack of his lips, the moment of disconnect sends a nervous snap through Lester’s body, but he quickly relaxes when Lorne wraps his lips around Lester’s wet cock again. He curls Lester’s back down flat, crouching between Lester’s legs as he drinks down Lester’s seed already slick across the shaft. Lester’s hands claw into Lorne’s thin hair, massages his scalp, pulls Lorne in to take Lester in deep into his throat.

And Lorne sucks on him, close enough to the edge that even a slight graze of his teeth against Lester’s cock could send him over the edge, but he won’t let that happen. Not yet. He pulls back again, leaving Lester hanging and wanting more and finally. _Finally_. Lester grabs him, hands lit with sun baked desire and he shoves Lorne on the dusty wooden floor.

Lorne falls like he’s a ragdoll cat. Floppy, malleable. He perceives Lester’s naked form, pink and sweating and rippling with desire, drawing closer, honing in. Lorne holds his lip between his teeth as he starts to take off his pants before Lester gets to him. Can already feel his junk starting to form into something solid by the time Lester gets his hands on him.

“Get on your knees,” Lester orders.

Lorne grits his teeth, snarls, but does as he’s asked. Then, moments later, he feels Lester’s dick press between his ass cheeks, feels Lester lean in, his wet dick sliding down behind Lorne’s dry, lengthening shaft. Lorne grabs both lengths in his hand, spreads the thickness between his fingers and rocks slightly, feels Lester’s cock slide under his balls. He pushes back on Lester’s heat to keep him steady, his ass grinding gently over Lester.

“You’re not allowed to touch,” Lester tells him.

Lorne smirks, “Easy.”

He drops his hand away, returns to keeping him steady on all fours. Ants dart across in the dust and he can feel dirt stick to where his skin is the sweatiest, but he pays no mind to it compared to a hot and heavy Lester situated behind him.

“What are you waiting for?” Lorne asks him after a moment of unbearable _nothing_.

At that, he feels Lester’s hands on his hips, Lester’s dick slides out from underneath and Lester doesn’t even wait. His dick isn’t as wet anymore, having dried off in the air and from the heat and so the moment he pushes in, pain strikes straight to Lorne’s core. He barks out, but doesn’t shy away from Lester. Lester levers out and spits on his hand, spreads it on his dick to help with pressing in the next time. Just as hard, but the extra slickness helps him move deeper, helps Lester tickle Lorne’s sweet spot which makes his arms buckle, forces Lorne on his elbows.

The floorboards scrape against the point of skin on his elbows and he’s going to be left with more than one kind of mark. He claws into the wood at each thrust and Lester’s nails dig into Lorne’s skin, a mirror of soft supple skin to hard wood. Lorne bites his forearm until his tooth cuts through skin, lips tied back as Lester fucks him too fast and too hard but who’s Lorne to complain? He takes what Lester gives him, feels his insides explode from pain and pleasure and his legs go weak and his arms pink and red. And he doesn’t even have to touch himself to cum. It’s the mismatched repetition of Lester hitting his sweet spot, here, and not, and there again, and the sound of Lester growling and clawing him like a bear, leaving his scratch mark, splinter mark, that gets him to empty his sack. All it takes is this. A little bit of force and a little bit of someone taking what they want and he can cum like he means it.

Lester doesn’t last much longer. Lorne’s seed is only just starting to weep down his thighs when Lester chokes, starts to get rigid and jolty and Lorne’s eyes roll back in his head as he can acutely feel Lester’s filthy seed shooting into his ass. Lorne can’t keep himself up anymore. He lets his legs collapse, Lester’s dick then slides out with a slick dry pop and Lester makes a disgruntled noise as he sits back on his heels. Lorne rolls to his side, lifts up his shirt to wipe blood and spit off his mouth.

“Don’t suppose-“ Lester starts, trying to control his panting, “-you have some tissues lying around here? Something to clean us up?”

Lorne finishes wiping off his mouth and glances up at Lester who’s holding one hand to his neck, feeling the pulse.

“Lake’s just a five minute walk, kiddo.”

Lester then pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment, then relaxes his face.

“That’s going to have to do.”

Lorne doesn’t make like he’s going to get up any time soon. He lies sprawled on the ground, damp with sweat and cum and stink. He intends on bathing in the afterglow a while longer, let his soul re-join with his body as the two planes of Earth and Hell realign. Except Lester won’t drop the whole job thing.

“How do I get my own assignments?”

Lorne closes his eyes. He couldn’t have waited a minute.

“Ever since I-“

“Alright, alright. I don’t want to hear the full spiel again. When we get to Churchs Ferry I’ll arrange a meeting with my employer to establish you a working permit.” He keeps his eyes shut, and adds, “And we can part ways, after that.”

Lorne hates to realize that he actually holds his breath. Listens intently to hear what Lester has to say in reply, except no comment is made. Something of a visual sign he misses with his eyes closed.

“If that’s what you really want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jokes, there's going to be one last chapter! I'll try and upload it within the next week, it's already basically written anyway.


	4. Use (Control)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorne hears chatter about an old target whose wealth has grown legendary. He uses his old connection to hunt her down and take her and her wealth out before some other idiot exposes their whole operation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the final chapter! have some semi domestic lorne/lester with a side of murder. Hope you guys like it! Sorry if there are any mistakes.

_This is a true story. The events depicted took place in North Dakota. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred._

 

“Is that the time?”

“Mmhm, 10.25.”

Malvo squints, “We’re late.”

Lester glares briefly at Malvo, then back to the gravel road.

“We wouldn’t be late,” Malvo continues, “If you hadn’t insisted on cutting off _all_ the crusts.”

“Heck, they’re cucumber sandwiches! They’re _meant_ to be cut off. Besides,” Lester glares pointedly out the windshield before him, “If you hadn’t stopped to talk to Mr Applegate for _half an hour_ we’d be on time. _On_ time.”

A dip in the road comes up and Lester doesn’t slow down for it. The left side of the car drops harshly, causing a couple of sandwiches to fall off the plate on Malvo’s lap. When the car rights itself again, Malvo leans over and plucks the sandwiches up, dusts them off and places them back on the plate.

Suppose it doesn’t matter if they go bad, no one’s going to be left alive to complain about the taste anyway.

The drive isn’t long, really. If they didn’t need the car to escape, he could have just let Malvo talk about horticulture with their landlord for as long as he likes, and Lester could’ve just walked to the bank himself. And he would have, if his undergraduate contract didn’t require Malvo to be present for all executions, whether they be under official business or not. Funny how there’s so many rules in this line of work that, rather than go against, parallel the rules of Lester’s old world. He remembers something Malvo said to him almost two years ago.

 _We swim in a red tide, this world we live in. If you don’t stand up, show them you’re an ape where it counts, then you’re just gonna get swept away_.

If only Malvo could have entered his life earlier because Lester’s making up for lost time now. All he can do is try and kick down the door as fast as he can. The only reason he even has a toe through is thanks to being tied to a man higher up in the hierarchy of contract killing. The rest of the ladder climbing is up to what he can stand up to, and Lester can’t help but feel hasty about it. Malvo’s had almost his whole life to get into the groove of things, and Lester’s behind by decades. Thing is, being hasty isn’t going to get him anywhere except into an early grave. Guess he’s thankful that he’s got Malvo as a partner in this gig. The man’s got enough patience to watch a snail travel down ND-46 W and back again.

He pulls up at the bank on the main street of Cando, North Dakota, lets the front of the car slide right on top of the curb.

Malvo winces as the bumper bar grates long the cement, “They haven’t arrived yet.”

There’s only two other cars parked out front. Darlene’s and Harold’s. Harold is the bank manager and owner who has been running the First State Bank in Cando for fifty odd years. Darlene is Harold’s only other employee, and has been for forty odd years. Lester gets out of the car. They only have so much time before the technicians arrive to install the cameras before they can get their own job done, and thanks to their morning delays, Lester’s counting the minutes that they have left.

Malvo had told him that back in Fargo, there was talk going around between his contacts about an elderly woman sitting on a pile of riches in a remote country town. Apparently there’s a lot of these rumours out here. Small towns, big money, kids with big heads and others quiet but with holes in their scripture. This particular rumour was that this woman had been swindling money from a bank for years. To be precise, 27 years. Malvo only knows this because he’d encountered her before in Cando a couple of decades ago. To a local, her scheme would seem regular, but to an outsider, there’s clearly something off. She charges a small bank fee, and instead of tilling it, she pockets it. A small, insignificant fee charged to each and every customer across decades which has accumulated a bountiful wealth, hidden somewhere in Cando.  
They’d been staking her out for about four months, masquerading as _friends_ having moved to get away from the city, look for a quiet life and work. They rent a unit behind an elderly man’s trinket shop on the main street. Their back door leads to an overgrown garden which Mr Applegate tends to on the weekends, comes around to their side door and offers them pot. Lester always politely declines but Malvo can’t resist a long chat with the guy. Apart from that, Lester tries to make a relationship with Darlene. Not necessarily a romantic one, although that was on the table until Harold revealed to them about the planned installation of surveillance cameras. If the heat on Darlene wasn’t enough already. Surely once the cameras go up and running, Malvo’s – and soon to be Lester’s – associates will be able to clue in on her whereabouts. Until then, he and Malvo have the upper hand of knowing exactly where their target is. It’s best to take her out now, cut down the silence so some idiot doesn’t expose their whole operation in trying to take her wealth. All that’s left is to try to get her to talk on her own.

Malvo tells Lester he respects her for how she plays the game. Her patience is truly admirable. She’s careful with her spending, if she spends at all. She lives in the same house she was born in. She drives on old hatchback which looks like a stampede of bulls has deformed the panelling. She buys her clothes from the recycle shop around the corner from her work and she rarely eats out. Without cameras and with the trust of her community, she’s completely unsuspecting. Of course, the moment the cameras get installed, her behaviour might change. And change makes people unpredictable.

Malvo passes him the plate before Lester closes the car door. He marches up to the glass door of the bank and balls his fists either side of his thighs. He can feel Malvo’s eyes on him from the car. He grins his nails into his palms, and after a few minutes of glaring at the welcome mat he pushes on through the door.

Three times a week he comes to the bank to make a withdrawal and after a month, Darlene had taken to swinging the counter bar up the moment she had laid eyes on him and giving him a wet kiss on the cheek.

Except today.

Darlene observes Lester walking through the door and does not budge from behind the counter. Granted, she does give him a warm smile.

“My _favourite_ customer,” Darlene says, waving him in, “Please come out of that heat.”

The heavy glass door shuts behind him, sucking out the hot air. The air conditioner must be set to negatives because it’s as cold as an ice box inside, and as small as one too. Lester’s always felt quite cramped even when it’s just himself and Darlene.

“No kiss for me today?” Lester says with a wink.

Darlene bites her lip, “I’m sorry George, what on _Earth_ am I thinking?”

And she leans across the counter to give Lester a peck on his cheek. The moment she returns to her spot, Lester can see her wringing her wrists.

“Oh these darned technicians, they are going to interrupt our breakfast when they come in here with all of their equipment,” Darlene says airily.

“You postponed it?”

Darlene’s eyes go wide and she nods, “I postponed it, and I postponed it again, ya, but the official bank branch says I can’t push it back anymore. It’s happening today or this place is getting…” Darlene starts to choke, “S-shut down!”

“Come now, Darlene, it was the sweetest thing. You didn’t want to interrupt our time, but this has to happen, doesn’t it?”

Darlene grimaces, “Yes, I think they’re late. Perhaps our breakfast won’t be interrupted…” She points at the plate in Lester’s hand, “And what do we have here?”

“Cucumber sandwiches.”

Lester sets the plate down on the counter, then eyes her as Darlene steps back behind the counter and starts to pull something out from the cupboards beneath. She takes out a large fruit bowl full of assorted stone fruits, a shaky grin on her face.

“Oh,” Lester gushes, “Look at this! You’ve out _done_ me, Darlene. How am I meant to compete against this?”

“I picked them all from my garden,” Darlene says, animated, “Have some!”

Lester leans one arm on the counter, “I have to say, you have cheated, my darling. The deal was, we would make something simple for breakfast together before the _corporation_ installs their eyes to watch and criticise our flirtations.”

Darlene’s eyes flutter, but nervously between Lester and the large window which shows onto the parking spots. From many times visiting the bank, Lester knows that even though his car windows are not tinted, the reflection of the sky against the windshield is enough to prevent anyone from being able to look right through the window of the bank and seeing right into his car. He’s confident that despite Malvo occupying the passenger seat, Darlene should not be able to see him.

“Shush,” Darlene says with a quaver in her voice, “Harold is in today.”

Lester leans in close to Darlene, as close as he can over the counter without risking his casual appearance, and he says carefully, “I’m sure you haven’t anything to hide, though, Darlene. Unless… there’s something _naughty_ you get up to when no one’s around.”

Darlene’s back straightens, she glances at the clock on the wall and not a moment later, Lester hears the car door slam. They both snap their heads around to look out the window, then seconds later, Malvo enters the bank.

Lester turns around and hisses, “M-Theo? What are you doing out of the car?”

Malvo ignores him and greets Darlene in his sweet voice, “Good morning Darlene.”

“…Good morning,” Darlene stammers, then looks to Lester for answers, “Who’s this then, Georgie? He’s as much skin and bone a-as you are.”

“This is my _roommate_ , Theodore.”

Malvo extends a hand, “We met at the farmer’s markets last month.”

“Oh yes,” Darlene says, a slight shake in her posture, “I recall.”

Malvo spots the bowl of fruit and Lester rolls his eyes when he sees a smirk creep across Malvo’s face. _Technically_ , it’s not really Lester’s job, it’s Malvo’s. He supposes it might be Malvo’s last one for a long time before Lester is permitted to go out on his own. A moment of selflessness is enough justification to let Malvo steal the show.

“Darlene, those cherries look _exquisite_!” Malvo exclaims, “May I have one?”

Darlene’s looking at the clock, chewing her lip, and she says, “Go ahead, my dear.”

Malvo plucks a cherry and drops it in his mouth. He cores it, then spits out the seed and gets deep red cherry juice all over his lips. He looks at Lester for a moment with sultry eyes, red dripping from his lips and onto his chin and Malvo doesn’t make any move to wipe it off.

He grabs another cherry and eats as he starts to tell a story earnestly to Darlene.

“When I was teaching, I had the fortune of having the most delicious cherries at hand every day. There was a cherry tree so big that I could park my pickup truck beneath it and stand on the roof to pick the cherries. They were as fat as persimmons. To this day, I have still never seen a cherry tree as huge and gorgeous as that one.”

Darlene goes on to talk about her own cherry and fruit trees, but the course of the tape is playing in Lester’s memory. He can clearly remember listening to the sound of laughter as Malvo and his young friends picked the cherries one hot summer’s afternoon, the evening breeze flowing through the trees, the freakish laughter of men and women.

Once Darlene had finished boasting about her garden, Lester prompts Malvo’s story onwards, “You were a teacher?”

“Mm. Many years ago. I lived in a little cottage on the hillside about an hour’s drive from my university where I taught dentistry for two semesters. Originally I’d rented the cottage by myself. Rent was cheaper then, wouldn’t you know it, Darlene?”

She blushes.

“But I had a couple of friends at the university who were looking for a cheap place to stay and I was happy to accommodate. I split the cost three ways with two other professors, Dr Calloway, a psychologist, and Mr Yan who taught social work. You thought that mathematics and science department feuds were juicy? You should have _heard_ the arguments between those two. Kept the house alive and loud throughout the year.”

At this point, Harold comes out of his office to listen to Malvo’s story.

“Now, this  was a bit of a trek from college but worth it. I rented it in the 70s, so back then, 150 bucks got you a beautiful three bedroom. It was on a farm, an orchard farm, actually, which explains the sheer health of the cherry tree. I didn’t have access to the main orchard, only the cherry tree which was the centrepiece of a pebble stone driveway which parted in three directions. South down a long tree lined road to the country link, West to my cottage and North to the main house. If you continued north, you could trundle up the pebble stones and pass long greenhouses and nettings lining either side all the way up the mansion. Go West for just a short drive and there was my little cottage, overgrown and quaint.

“So we weren’t allowed in the orchard, but behind it they let me grow pot. They didn’t mind so much me and my friends harvesting the cherries. The only thing they ever asked of me was to cover up the pot when people came to inspect the place. I’ll tell you, when I went in first, there was trash knee deep through _every_ room. I remember the night before I moved in, the police called me up on the landline in the hotel I was staying in and told me they’d raided it for drugs and cleaned half of it out. They’d promised me that the place was cleaner after they were done with it than before! I’ll tell you, I’ve seen worse crack dens than that one. Anyway, they’d just left trash. I had 4 weeks free rent for cleaning the rest of it up so well. And after that, I was allowed to smoke inside too.

“I remember meeting the people who rented after me. Briefly. I was in a flurry of marking exams and papers and trying to get the funds together to move to another state at the time. They were a nice couple though. Educated. I remember that they had one look around at the cottage and paid a full year’s rent, maybe more, the very next day. Definitely worth it. The farmers who owned the place undersold it for what it was. Who knows if those nice people ever found the pot I planted out the back, or if they ever dug up the dead bodies I buried under the mulberry bush.”

 Darlene and Harold, already unnerved by the mention of illicit drugs, gasp at Malvo’s last sentence. Malvo simply looks at them with a blank look as he eats another cherry, blood red juice slathering over his teeth.

“Darlene,” Lester interrupts, “We know what you have been doing, what you have been doing for _years_.”

“W-what?”

“What are you talking about George? Is this some kind of joke?” Harold accuses Lester.

“Tell us where your money is, Darlene, and no one has to get hurt,” Lester says.

Darlene makes to say more excuses, but Malvo speaks over her.

“Harold, are you aware that Darlene charges bank fees?”

Harold frowns, “Well, yes! That is the standard.”

“…At 300% the price of the regular bank fee?”

“You… You can’t prove that. There’s no proof!” Darlene stammers, stabbing her finger in the air.

Malvo nods at the clock, “Soon there will be.”

Darlene’s eyes follow his and instantly the colour in her face drains.

“This is your last _moment_ to be honest, Darlene,” Lester says.

“No… I won’t – _Harold_!“

Lester takes out his gun from his pocket and shoots Harold in the head. His body slams against some filing cabinets and red smears down the metal, following Harold’s limp body to the carpeted ground. Darlene screams and covers her face with her hands.

“Tell us where the money is, darling,” Malvo says in a flat, mocking tone.

Darlene looks at them both in horror, heaving for air and crying and watching in terror as Malvo leans over to grab another cherry.

“Okay! I’ll show you! Just don’t kill me, please!”

 

-

The day the cameras go up is the day she is caught, and so it’s her time to die, anyway.

Lester drives out onto the 281 on a roundabout way towards the Grand Forks. Dusty highway, non-descript hotel. Sacks full of cash sit wedged in the trunk of the car, spilling out into the back seats and Lester commends himself for not being phased by it. Maybe his younger self would load his wallet and pockets and shoes with notes and go to the casino, see if he can’t double or triple it. Or take himself down for a ride in the night life or just buy stuff. Any stuff. All the stuff he doesn’t want or need. And sure, money is a plus. But he’s not even it in it for the money. He can’t be. The only thing the money is good for really, is for keeping him alive and secret.

It’s good for something else, though. It’s a physical reward for the hard work he’s gone through. One day he’ll have enough that he won’t have to kill anyone he doesn’t have to, and he can sit on some luxurious island until his tan has cooled down and the new day has begun. Or he can keep going like this. Keep winning, keep driving, keep Malvo by his side.

He glances over at the man resting in the passenger seat beside him. Blood splattered shirt clinging to Malvo’s small frame. Summer sweat on his fringe hugged brow. Red still stains Malvo’s chin and sharp teeth and it doesn’t even matter to Lester if it’s blood or cherry juice because Lester starts squirming in his seat. The leather squeaking, his teeth pulling against his lip. It has to be the adrenalin, or else it’s the sight of Malvo just _sitting_ there that’s making him feel hot.

Malvo’s not blind, “Lester, you have about as much energy in you as a sixteen year old kid,” he says as he closes his eyes and starts to recline in the seat, “Save it for the hotel.”

Lester squints. Grips the steering wheel, pulls himself to the edge of the seat and back again, trying to ignore Malvo and ignore his dick and focus on the road, jeez, focus on the road.

They pass a sign farewelling them out of official Cando territory and Lester suddenly realizes that there’s been a long absence of sirens attributing to his lack of alarm. He wonders if the techies found Harold first, or an unsuspecting customer. He wonders if anyone’s going to say anything about blood swamping out of her garden shed, blood and guts fertilising the soil for generations to come.

Lester licks his lips and asks, “Who did you bury?”

“Huh?” Malvo mumbles with his eyes closed.

“In that cherry tree story… did you murder the professors you lived with?”

Malvo sits up in his seat, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth sleepily.

“No, no. I was uh…” He pauses, “You should already know this.”

“I know names, and how they died, but not why you killed them. What did they have?”

Malvo nods. He starts off slow, “I was staking out the main house. The husband had a vintage collection of steam engines passed down from his father.” Then Malvo’s voice changes to something artificial, “You’re look at me and thinking _steam engines_ and I’m saying _ride on_ steam engines. Like the miniature kind you’d see at a theme park. Yeah. You’d be surprised that there’s a whole generation of elderly people who wax their ears and dig out gold. There’s unimaginable wealth in that field.

“So this guy’s family was sitting on top of a basement full of goods waiting to be turned into cash. They’d go off to the auctions every second weekend of the month. They were trying to sell it as a set, see. A whole set for 50 large, so… probably a quarter of a mil’ today. I knew that they couldn’t sell it all at once. The collectors are rich, but the Faustinos are the richest of the lot. In time, with a lot of convincing on my part over brunches and dinners, they finally realized that they couldn’t sell the whole thing. They had to sell it in parts.

“They built up a bank selling off bits and pieces. It was undeniable that the goods were moveable, just not as fast as the family would like. Thing was, every somebody wanted a particular model but they didn’t want 9 versions of the same thing. Over the course of the year, their bank began to stagnate. In the Winter of 1979, I was having Christmas dinner up there with the husband and wife and their beautiful daughters. I screwed one of the daughters in the upstairs bathroom, then her sister in the downstairs bathroom a half hour later. It was an exquisite banquet. Fruits and berries from their garden, the thickest turkey glazed with cranberries and I’ll never forget, they had these rosemary potatoes all carved into hearts. To date, it is my second best Christmas dinner. The first being the massacre at Knife River Point, but that’s a story for another time…

“The family didn’t have many visitors. Funny how wealth makes you scared. I had done a lot for them down in the cottage, cleaned it out as I said before, helped them get someone in to rent after me. I’d looked after the garden well too. Besides the pot, I’d planted some non-fruit bearing trees that would provide much needed shade and privacy in the years to come, and flowers in the backyard under the windows. I was the asset they were forgiving in inviting for dinner.

“So I’d just rooted Eleanor in the upstairs bathroom, and I didn’t much like the décor of the upper floor so I convinced Leslie to take me downstairs and show me the remains of the fabled collection. That’s where I smashed her head against the safe door after she showed me the contents. Everything was there down to the last penny. Bills rolled up into grand stacks. I went up and shot the help on the way back to the dining room. Ran out of bullets by the time I got there and used the turkey knife to cut the throats of the rest of the family. I haven’t set foot in Montana since.”

The blinking neon of the hotel flashes over the grey sky. He pulls in, quickly checks them in and collects their keys.

“So you buried them?” Lester asks as they’re walking up the cement staircase to their room.

“Didn’t have to,” Malvo says, still in his animated tone, “I framed the professors. The bodies under the mulberry bush I’d buried from my previous job. Carted them across the state to bury them safe and sound. Had to put my car up in flames, that’s how I got my pickup in the first place. The Faustinos sold it to me.”

Lester takes Malvo’s hand then and pulls in into the room, kicking the door shut behind them both.

“Enough talking now,” Lester says.

Malvo flashes him a scowl aimed at their linked hands.

“What are you doing?”

Lester slips his hand away from Malvo’s and with his other hand, he takes out his handgun, presses it against Malvo’s side.

“Why the heck did you interrupt me in the bank?”

Malvo eyes him. He waits before he speaks, “You know Lester, normally contracts don’t require someone of my skill level to accompany a newbie. The only reason I agreed to it was because I knew you would mess it up if I wasn’t there to help you.”

“You still don’t believe I’m cut out for this?”

Malvo doesn’t say anything. He only looks at Lester, eyes half lidded. Their bodies close, gun pressed tight against Malvo’s clothed waist. Lester snarls at him. Then, something clicks.

“No, no. That’s not it, is it? I _can_ do it. Heck, you _know_ I can do it, you’ve _seen_ me. The thing is, you _want_ me to need you.”

Malvo blinks, then chuckles, “What gave you that idea?”

Offended by the cold laugh, Lester kicks the tip of his gun around to Malvo’s back with a twist, forcing the man in front of him and toward the bed. Malvo collapses on top of the bedding, but before Lester can stop him, he rolls onto his back, a sick smirk on his face.

“You’re smarter than I give you credit for,” Malvo quips.

“Shut up,” Lester snaps angrily, but he keeps his movements slick and tender, rough and bittersweet.

He climbs onto Malvo’s lap, knees either side of Malvo’s hips and the gun poised on taut skin where Malvo’s shirt has lifted up. Then, he grinds down on Malvo’s lap. Christ, he was thirsty in the car with the sirens blazing on the horizon and their cash flitting out the window, and there’s nothing holding him back now. He applies pressure with his gun, partly using it to steady himself as he rolls his hips into Malvo’s, lets the man beneath him feel how hard he is. He arches his back, holds his arm out straight, the tip of the gun surely making an indent in Malvo’s abdomen, and he has to bite his lower lip when he feels Malvo’s hands grip his thighs.

For a moment, he’s caught up in the feeling of the friction, the heat building between them, the very _thought_ that Malvo doesn’t want Lester to leave him. And a second later, when his hand dares to go lax, Malvo punches Lester’s wrist away, gets the gun in his hand and turns the tables, turns Lester over. Lester’s winded temporarily, stomach pressed into the mattress and Malvo’s knees either side of his ass and _God_ … The barrel of his gun running up the knobs in Lester’s spine.

He lets out a moan, claws the bedding, his back arching in trail of Malvo’s tracing. He tries to look over his shoulder to see Malvo’s face but it’s hidden in the shadows of the sunset. He bites down with bedding between his teeth as he feels Malvo’s dick press into the curve of his back.

“What did I tell you?” Lester swallows harshly, “You love this. Heck, you _love_ that I can’t fucking resist you.”

In response, Malvo says, “Pathetic,” as he snatches the hem of Lester’s pants and yanks them down.

“Me, or you?” Lester replies.

Malvo only snarls. He pokes Lester’s gun underneath one hip bone and coaxes Lester to stand on his all fours on the bed. Anticipating what’s coming next, Lester hitches his ass closer to Malvo, craning his neck over his shoulder to see what the other man is doing.

“Definitely you,” Malvo says before stepping off the bed for a moment.

Malvo goes to fish the small container of lube amongst the 1k stacks of money in his bag. The essentials. Even though Lester’s starting to lose heat, he pulls off his shirt, kicks off the last leg of his pants and poises himself ready again. The bed dips when Malvo returns, and Lester’s finding it hard to stay still when everything in his body is tingling with excitement.

“You’re trembling,” Malvo comments, placing the gun against Lester’s tailbone.

Lester tries not to sound needy, “Just fuck me already.”

The next moment, Lester feels ice cold lube touch his entrance and he can’t help but grunt at the sensation. The cold is removed for a moment, then returns with a quick thrust of Malvo’s finger deep inside his hole. Lester lowers his shoulders and drops his head on the blankets, teething the fabric as Malvo works on widening his hole. Lester peeks out of the gaps between his limbs and notices that somewhere between getting the lube, Malvo must have unclothed himself too, because now the man stands behind him buck naked.

Buck naked and finger fucking him.

Some days, Lester can’t believe his luck.

Malvo bumps the tip of his gun up a notch in Lester’s spine, lets it slide up across his ribs and to the wing in Lester’s left shoulder blade. At the same time, he rocks his half hard dick between Lester’s ass, slick from lube. Lester can feel his hole puckering with the anticipation, his eyes screwed shut, his teeth crunching down on the bedding and his nails clawing his forearms.

“Malvo,” Lester exhales in a hot breath, “ _Please_.”

He can tell Malvo’s not all the way there yet from the awkward way he pushes his dick into Lester’s ass. It doesn’t matter. Malvo’s grunt skates down Lester’s back, the gun flopping to one side, toppling onto the bed and neither of them make any move to grab it. Malvo now grabs Lester’s hips, pulls back, and uses the steady hold to help him push in at a better angle. Lester can acutely feel the way Malvo’s dick swells inside him, can tell because Malvo’s reaching deeper with each thrust, his dick extending with blood and sweat and heat and –

“Aw _heck_ ,” Lester punches the mattress from the pain, but Malvo doesn’t hold back. Lester’s counting on it.

Malvo’s noisy. Always has something to say, always likes having a chat with people and starting conversations that last hours. He gets his energy that way, but he is happy to wander around a cabin in the middle of the wilderness and hunt in silence for months on end. He’s capable of both. And Lester prides himself in making Malvo be noisy even when he can tell Malvo’s trying not to be. Lester’s checking off boxes when Malvo moans throaty and groans guttural and grunts with every pound in as he gets harder and fucks harder. Lester thinks he must awaken something in Malvo. A beast, a quietened wolf used to the silence of the night and unused to the pleasures of a frequent fuck.

Lester tenses his ass muscles around Malvo’s dick, helps pull Malvo’s length in, or doesn’t, and snatches Malvo in place. Holds him close. And that shouldn’t be what does it but there’s a burning and it’s hot liquid filling his ass and dripping out and this is not over, this is not the end.

Lester orders Malvo to lie down and, panting heavily, Malvo pulls out of Lester – with difficulty, because Lester chases him without thinking, then thinks, and remembers what he’s just asked Malvo to do. Malvo lies down on his back, lips wet and teeth gleaming and Lester seizes his dick in his hand, heady but rapidly declining. He positions himself as he was in the beginning, squatting over Malvo, and he holds Malvo’s wet dick up, forces himself to sit. The relief of the return sucks the air out of him, makes him feel lightheaded and weak with a weak dick inside of him.

“I don’t think I can…” Malvo trails off, sloppy.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lester says in reply.

He lifts himself, lowers, and starts to ride what’s left of Malvo’s erection. Cum and lube dripping out of him, Malvo’s warm hands on his thighs. I’s going to take a bit so he moves Malvo’s right hand to his dick, gets his man to touch him. As he rides out Malvo’s unsteady tide, he can feel Malvo actually getting hard again, against all doubts. Sweat slips down his spine, the heat of the sun on the back of his neck and the heat between them, the hot length hitting his sweet spot and a warm wet thumb kicking beneath the head of his dick. Lester moans and moans again, and keeps on moaning, his eyes closed for the devil and mouth open for the angel’s howls. Before blue turns to white, he views Malvo beneath him. Eyes trained on him, lips parted, skin pink and shiny and crawling but crawling toward him, inching every inch toward the core of heat and love and the seeds to grow into life and lead into death.

With aching thighs and sighing joints, sighing with ecstasy, Lester lets himself go.

A noise like the deafening nothingness after a shot fired. A blank, blankness. He comes to having sagged against Malvo’s side, legs entangled in Malvo’s all sweaty and sticky and sore. He looks down at Malvo’s dick, lax but throbbing, all red and wilting. Then up to Malvo’s face, flush, cherry skin in his gums.

 

-

 

“…This job has been the only constant in my whole life. Houses and cars and girls and love gone by, and I’ve still got this place,” the hotel manager’s saying to Malvo as he checks them out.

Malvo leans on the counter, “The only constant in my life are my tapes.”

Lester could point out to the manager that the tapes aren’t of the music variety, but instead, he says, “You’re wrong.”

Malvo turns to Lester, “Oh?”

“You have _two_ constants,” Lester tells Malvo.

“Two,” Malvo repeats.

“Your tapes,” Lester explains, “And me.”

Malvo holds his gaze, then, after a long while of holding the handles of knives in his eyes, he says, “I’m going to have to shoot the man now, for embarrassing me.”

Lester only grins at Malvo.

“Do you _want_ me to shoot him Lester?”

Lester sidles up close to Malvo, slings an arm around his waist.

“Yes, or no.”

 

 

(Fanart by [captainreverie](http://captainreverie.tumblr.com/). [Click here for large](http://68.media.tumblr.com/f8adbe8e9db20dea3cb2cd7a5c47073a/tumblr_okfzstHg111vutocdo1_1280.jpg))

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway, thanks again to lornemalvoofficial for inspiring me to write this fic. it's been a fun time!


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